Search Results (20)

Background/Objectives: The field of dietary supplements is changing and evolving quickly. Registered Dietitian Nutritionists are recognized as experts in nutrition and familiarity with the usage of dietary supplements is expected. However, education on the use of dietary supplements is not equal across accredited dietetic education programs, which can lead to disparities in dietitians’ feelings of preparedness, attitudes, and consequently experience of comfort regarding dietary supplements. The purpose of this study was to create the D-SCOPE Questionnaire (Dietitians’ Survey of Comfort, Opinions, and Preparedness in Education in Supplements) and validate it. This questionnaire assesses Registered Dietitian Nutritionists’ feelings of preparedness, comfort with use, and general attitudes in the field of dietary supplements. Methods: Face and content validity was established with dietitian, nutritionist, and statistician input. For recruitment, 2000 national randomly selected emails were obtained from the Commission on Dietetic Registration. Registered Dietitian Nutritionists (n = 248) responded to the survey email request. Descriptive statistics (reported as means ± standard deviation), principal axis factoring (exploratory factor analysis) with a direct oblimin rotation and Cronbach’s a reliability analysis were used for validation techniques. Results: Five factors were created, which explained about 63% of the variance in the questionnaire. The questionnaire was generally reliable, but the factor structure could change with a non-US population. Conclusions: As a unit, the D-SCOPE Questionnaire shows validity and reliability in assessing Registered Dietitian Nutritionists’ perceptions of preparedness and attitudes in the area related to dietary supplements. Full article

Within the scope of “Eco Map of Zagreb” project, eight sensor sets (type AQMeshPod) were set up at an automatic measuring station at the Institute for Medical Research and Occupational Health (IMROH) for comparison with reference methods for air quality measurement during 2018. This station is a city background station within the Zagreb network for air quality monitoring, where measurements of SO₂, CO, NO₂, O₃, PM₁₀ and PM_2.5, are performed using standardized methods accredited according to EN ISO/IEC 17025. This paper presents a comparison of pollutant mass concentrations determined by sensors with reference methods. The data were compared and filtered to remove outliers and handle deviations between the results obtained by sensors and reference methods, considering the different approaches to gas and PM data. A comparison of sensor results with the reference methods showed a large scattering of all gaseous pollutants while the comparison for PM₁₀ and PM_2.5 indicated a satisfactory low dispersion. The results of a regression analysis showed a significant seasonal dependence for all pollutants. Significant statistical differences between the reference methods and sensors for the whole year and in all seasons for all gas pollutants, as well as for PM₁₀, were observed, while for PM_2.5 statistical significance showed varying results. Full article

Background/Objectives: Comprehensive cancer centers (CCCs) remain at the forefront of cancer control efforts. Limited clarity and variation exist around the models, scope, characteristics, and impacts of CCCs around the globe. This scoping review systematically searched and synthesized the international literature, describing core attributes and anticipated and realized impacts of CCCs, detailing changes over time. Methods: Searches for English language sources were conducted across PubMed, Cochrane CENTRAL, Epistemonikos, and the gray literature from January 2002 to April 2024. Data were extracted and appraised by two authors. Results were narratively synthesized. Results: Of 3895 database records and 843 gray literature sources screened, 81 sources were included. Papers were predominantly opinion-based, from the USA and Europe, and published between 2011 and 2020. Internationally, the interconnected attributes of CCCs included (1) clinical service provision; (2) research, data, and innovation; (3) education and clinical support; (4) networks and leadership; (5) health equity and inclusiveness; and (6) accountability and governance. Largely anticipated impacts were synergistic and included delivery of optimal, person-centered, complex care; development of a highly qualified cancer workforce; greater research activity and funding; effective, strategic alliances; and reduction in cancer-related inequalities. Limited evidence was found demonstrating measurable broad outcomes of CCCs. The early literature highlighted the establishment, development, and accreditation of CCCs. The ongoing literature has reflected the evolution of cancer care, key areas for growth, and limitations of CCCs. Recently, the CCC literature has increased exponentially and focused on the need for CCCs to drive networks and leadership to address health equity and inclusiveness. Conclusions: Results suggest that CCCs are yet to reach their full potential, with future efforts ideally focusing on accountability, effective networking, and health equity at a local, national, and international level. CCCs must generate evidence of impact, and continue to evolve in line with contemporary healthcare, to fulfil their role in cancer control efforts. Full article

Interdisciplinarity, characterized by the cohesive integration of knowledge across disciplines, is increasingly recognized as a feature of expert sports coaching practice. Concurrently, the importance of coaches’ decision-making regarding the role and use of athletes’ errors during training has been emphasized from an increasingly interdisciplinary perspective. This study aimed to address the gap between current conceptualizations of effective training design and real-world application by seeking to (a) explore the current application of interdisciplinary knowledge and practice within golf strength and conditioning (S&C) support; (b) examine S&C coaches’ conceptualization of errors made by athletes in the golf S&C environment; (c) understand the role of golf S&C coaches in athlete development. This study used semi-structured interviews to explore eight golf S&C coaches’ (male = 7, female = 1, M_age = 37.8 ± 9.2 years, M_experience = 9.3 ± 2.6 years) perspectives on and experiences of athletes’ errors and interdisciplinary integration. The data were analyzed using reflexive thematic analysis. The findings revealed that interdisciplinary knowledge integration is infrequent in golf S&C coaching despite practitioners’ recognition of the potential benefits for coaches and athletes. This lack of collaboration and knowledge across coaching domains is exemplified through practitioners’ simplistic conceptualization of athletes’ errors and narrow working scope regarding athlete support. In summary, the findings indicate a clear need for development within golf regarding interdisciplinary knowledge and practice pertaining to support provision. Specifically, encouraging a more developed conceptualization of athletes’ errors in alignment with advances in coaching science would be beneficial. Recommendations are made to support the integration of S&C knowledge across golf coaching domains and stress the importance of developing golf S&C practitioners’ psychosocial competencies during accreditation and professional development. Full article

Background: The Beat It program is a clinician-led, community-based group exercise intervention for adults with Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus (T2DM). While previous studies have demonstrated its effectiveness in improving physical and mental health outcomes, this study explores the perspectives of Beat It Trainers to identify key factors contributing to the program’s success and areas for improvement. Methods: Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 11 Accredited Exercise Physiologists who had delivered both in-person and online versions of the program. Interviews were thematically analyzed using inductive approaches. Results: Eight main themes emerged: customization to individual needs, capability building, outcome improvement, affordability, accessibility, sustainability, and a holistic approach delivered in a group setting. Challenges identified included managing group dynamics, maintaining participant commitment in a fully subsidized program, and providing nutrition advice within the trainers’ scope of practice. The program’s adaptability to both in-person and online delivery modes was highlighted as enhancing its accessibility and resilience. Conclusions: This study provides valuable insights into the factors contributing to the success of the Beat It program from the implementers’ perspective. The findings suggest that investing in comprehensive training for facilitators, particularly in group dynamics management, could benefit similar programs. While the program’s fully subsidized structure reduces financial barriers to entry, innovative strategies to enhance participant engagement and perceived value should be explored. The success of the online delivery mode indicates that hybrid models offering both in-person and virtual options could increase accessibility in future supervised, community-based exercise programs for T2DM management. Full article

Businesses are increasingly declaring their operations to be “carbon neutral” or “net-zero”. But how real are these claims? We investigated the climate mitigation efforts of the eight leading universities in Australia and discovered that the actual emission reductions lag behind the net-zero rhetoric. In the last ten years, most universities increased energy consumption, while reported emissions plateaued. The energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions of Group-of-Eight (Go8) universities were influenced by size and population growth, climate of the campus location, and energy efficiencies. The Go8 universities experienced, on average, a 25% increase in student numbers in the last decade, and most increased their energy consumption. However, Scope 1 (direct emissions) and Scope 2 (emissions from electricity consumption) remained stable for most universities from 2011 to 2019 and decreased on a per-capita basis, indicating some level of improved efficiencies. Almost all Go8 universities have net-zero commitments and aim to achieve this by similar measures: power purchase agreements (PPAs) for electricity consumption, and carbon offsets for remaining emissions. Most universities lack a strategy for direct or measurable targets regarding energy or emissions reductions along their value chain. Unlike the UK or other countries, Australia has no standardised emission reporting requirements for Scope 3 emissions (other indirect emissions). This has led to rudimentary and haphazard reporting, limiting comparability between universities. Only one university had a more complete Scope 3 inventory, and these Scope 3 emissions were five times greater than their combined Scope 1 and 2 emissions, indicating a potential for substantial under-reporting of emissions. This highlights the need for more rigorous, consistent, and sector-specific emissions accounting, especially on indirect emissions, and for an overhaul of net-zero accreditation. Full article

The use of fossil fuels has pushed the world towards crucial ecological tipping points and a climate crisis. The rapid decarbonization of all sectors is necessary to limit the worst impacts of this. Within the sports and sport-tourism sectors, event organizers and policymakers are increasingly interested in assessing the environmental impacts of events and identifying the types of strategies needed to reduce their carbon footprint. This paper responds to calls for studies to examine and compare the environmental impacts of multiple sport events and contribute towards providing an enhanced understanding of key factors influencing the scale of those impacts. It focuses on assessing the carbon footprints of 28 mass participation running events in North America. The paper uses a methodology developed by the Council for Responsible Sport as part of its Responsible Sport Standard for Events accreditation process. The results highlight that variations existed between the events in terms of their reporting of GHG emissions. The average event generated 3363 MtCO₂e (0.23 MtCO₂e per capita), with Scope 3 emissions accounting for 99.9% of the total emissions, and 98.9% being attributable to participant travel. This demonstrates how the Council’s methodology can assist event organizers by providing valuable insights into the carbon footprint of their events and its potential value as an environmental management tool. The paper also discusses some of the challenges faced by event organizers in measuring the carbon footprint of their event, suggests strategies for reducing event emissions, and provides recommendations for strengthening the Council’s methodology and its contribution to global sustainability efforts. Full article

Background: Yale New Haven Health (YNHH) implemented a pharmacy technician training program in 2016. The curriculum includes 14 weeks of combined didactic and simulation hours (280 h in total), followed by 360 h of experiential learning. MyDispense, an online pharmacy simulation, allows students to develop and practice their dispensing skills in a safe environment with minimal consequences for mistakes. We describe a novel innovation, expanding the functionality of MyDispense to the training of pharmacy technicians. Methods: Technician training coordinator, supervisor, faculty members with experience in MyDispense, and experiential pharmacy students created cases within the MyDispense software that were targeted towards pharmacy technician activities. Activities were aligned with current American Society of Health-System Pharmacists (ASHP)-Accreditation Council for Pharmacy Education (ACPE) Accreditation Standards for pharmacy technician education and training programs. Results: A total of 14 cases were developed to be utilized in student technician training, and account for approximately 14 h of simulation. Conclusions: MyDispense is an innovative software that could allow students to access and complete exercises, and to continue developing dispensing skills in a safe, remote environment. We identified similarities between activities performed by student pharmacists and student pharmacy technicians, expanding MyDispense to a new learner group to practice, develop and be assessed on dispensing skills within their scope, as part of a formal technician training program and in preparation for the Pharmacy Technician Certification Examination (PTCE). Full article

The prevalence of mental health disorders, driven by current global crises, is notably high. During the past decades, the popularity of dogs assisting humans with a wide spectrum of mental health disorders has significantly increased. Notwithstanding these dogs’ doubtless value, research on their legal status, certification processes, training and management practices, as well as their welfare status, has been scarce. This scoping review highlights that in contrast to other assistance dogs such as guide dogs, there exists no consistent terminology to mark dogs that assist humans with impaired mental health. Legal authorities monitoring the accreditation process, training and tracking of mental health supporting dogs are broadly lacking, with only few exceptions. This review emphasizes the need to address several topics in the promotion of progress in legal and welfare issues related to assistance dogs as well as emotional support dogs for humans with a mental health disorder. The current body of knowledge was assessed in three different areas of focus: (1) the legal dimension including definitions and certification processes; (2) the dimension of performed tasks; and (3) the dog welfare dimension including aspects of the relationship with the handler and risks associated with children recipients. Considering the challenges associated with a mental health diagnosis, collaborations of dog provider organizations and health care professionals would be desirable to continuously assess the efficiency of the human-dog dyad regarding their overall compatibility, general satisfaction and mutual well-being. Full article

What is an engineering student expected to learn to become a competent engineer? Which is most desirable in higher education: hard skills or soft skills? Are there differences between master’s and bachelor’s learning outcomes, or between public or private schools? Previous works point out the relevance of hard rather than soft skills in engineering higher education. The implementation of learning outcomes (LOs) in higher-education curricula has been a common challenge for European educational institutions. Despite the efforts undertaken since the Bologna Declaration, the effective implementation of the learning outcomes paradigm is still in process. This research intends to analyse the LOs proposed in the scope of graduate and postgraduate electrical or computer electrical or computer engineering programs submitted to the Agency for Assessment and Accreditation of Higher Education (A3ES) in Portugal since 2004. Conducting a qualitative analysis, data documents were coded according to the Nusche typology of LOs. The results suggest that cognitive skills are a core dimension in electrical or computer engineering LOs. References to non-cognitive LOs are not representative. Different institution sectors (private vs. public), systems (universities vs. polytechnics), and study cycles (first vs. second vs. integrated master) highlight distinct cognitive and non-cognitive categories in their definition of LOs. The results are discussed in terms of a changing or a recycling paradigm in higher-education practices. Full article

This paper aims to present a conceptual framework for Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) design with regard to continuous teacher training, where a mixed methodology research approach was used. This methodology was structured in two consecutive phases: The first phase adopted a sequential exploratory strategy, where a scoping literature review approach was applied, and analysis content techniques were used to map and analyze the key dimensions in the design of MOOCs. The second phase was based on the concurrent triangulation strategy, where the quantitative data were extracted from 103 questionnaires and the qualitative data were obtained from two mini focus group interviews, which contributed to the development of the framework. Based on the data collected in phase 2, we proposed a framework which is structured in three main dimensions and ten subdimensions: (i) Resources—Human and Technological infrastructure; (ii) Design—Course overview, Target learners, Pedagogical approaches, Goals, Learning materials, content and activities and Assessment activities; and (iii) Organization and monitoring—Accreditation and Data monitoring and evaluation. This paper contributes to the actual state of the art in MOOCs design given the inexistence of frameworks for such courses in the specific case of continuous teacher training, and it shows the importance of accreditation recognition by the Portuguese entities. Full article

Background: At present, in Ukraine, there is an insufficient capacity for up-to-date surveillance of the health status of the general population; public health (PH) promotion and disease prevention activities are scarce. Additionally, there is an urgent need to ensure, develop and support an efficient public health workforce (PHW) and appropriately address existing health issues. Ukraine currently introduces PH system reforms in line with its current burden of disease, the epidemiological profile and the Essential Public Health Services (EPHOs). This analysis aims to propose a pragmatic framework to provide guidance and recommendations related to the development, support and planning of the PHW in Ukraine. Methods: We constructed a framework based on a previously published scoping review and analyzed various policy analysis approaches. In line with the recommendations found in the literature and the best practices used elsewhere, this method enabled the construction of a framework for facilitating successful PHW development. In addition, an expert workshop was held, serving as a reality check for identifying crucial areas of the PH system in Ukraine. Results: The proposed framework includes a country’s background, the evidence and available policy options, such as the health system (including core functions, organizational resources, regulations and norms), health system capacities (including human resources; PH capacity assessment; datasets and databases; forecasting strategies; licensing, accreditation and quality assurance) and capacity building (including PH education, training, core competencies and ethical and professional codes of conduct). To facilitate and support effective implementation of the framework, we propose (1) implementing strategies to facilitate changes in attitude, behavior and practices among the citizens; (2) implementing strategies to facilitate the necessary behavioral changes in the PHW; (3) implementing strategies to facilitate the necessary organizational and institutional changes; (4) implementing strategies to facilitate system changes and (5) identification of potential barriers and obstacles for the implementation of these strategies. Conclusion: The report highlights the practical tactics and best practices for providing suggestions for PHW support and planning. The employment of prominent analytical tools and procedures in policymaking processes suggests an effective strategy for PHW development in Ukraine. Full article

Seasonality is a widely recognised and accredited phenomenon known to cause an imbalance in tourism activity throughout the year, prompting tourist destinations, both public and private, to consider how best to plan the use of their resources. One way of mitigating the economic imbalances that seasonality can cause is to find strategies for seasonal adjustment, such as travel programmes aimed at the elderly. This paper analyses the seasonality of tourism activity in some EU countries, and in particular in Spain. Different indicators are used to compare the results and carry out a sensitivity analysis. The study then focuses on tourism programmes for the elderly in Spain to see whether this type of programme helps to alleviate the seasonality of tourism activity. To corroborate this, an econometric model is specified and estimated, which enables the scope of these programmes to be compared. Full article

Allergy assessments and penicillin skin testing have emerged as a vital intervention for Antimicrobial Stewardship Programs (ASPs). Investment and involvement in such programs by ASPs, however, are often limited due to resources, time, and personnel constraints. Harnessing an underutilized resource, 4th-year advanced pharmacy practice experience (APPE) students, allows for expanded ASP involvement and scope of practice. We aim to outline and provide insight on how 4th-year APPE students serve as an asset to an ASP. Through our novel longitudinal rotation experience, APPE students complete penicillin allergy assessments, patient education, and work alongside a clinical pharmacist to refer patients for penicillin skin testing if appropriate. Students also achieve many of the education standards required by the Accreditation Counsel for Pharmacy Education (ACPE) for graduation within the Doctor of Pharmacy degree while developing a strong foundation in antimicrobial stewardship and gaining invaluable knowledge for their future. The addition of APPE pharmacy students to our ASP has also enabled our program to achieve its goals and expand involvement and reach within our facility. Full article

Online courses are gaining popularity because they provide extensive and varied course material, information, knowledge, and skills, whilst also creating an effective educational online community. This research adopts a case study approach to focus on the teaching method and the manner in which a strategic commitment to eLearning provides scope for the development and implementation of top quality educational online fully accredited programs. Entrepreneurship focuses on developing businesses that add value and create wealth and prosperity in our societies. Therefore, entrepreneurship is a key area of learning for graduate students seeking to set up and operate their own SME organizations. It can serve as a benchmark for the teaching of other graduate subjects that require a sound correlation for the correlation of concepts and theories to the challenging complexities of the real world. The program was developed on the basis of the implementation of a state-of-the-art eLearning platform that allowed for a combination of varied self-learning and collaborative learning elements and activities within a single platform. This enabled students to access the online content material efficiently and effectively. It allows for the development of a program based on the flipped classroom teaching methodology. The underlying concept of the flipped classroom methodology is that effective eLearning should comprise both synchronous and asynchronous learning activities. This combination of self-learning and collaborative learning calls for careful planning by the tutor to ensure that the learning objectives are clearly defined for each activity and that the relevant deliverables are monitored. The content material for each subject course module was designed, developed, produced, and presented by the different project partners in a holistic manner structured to motivate participants to learn. The results of our analysis have shown that students were able to learn, discuss their projects, and cooperate during an online course in an effective and participant-focused manner with their tutors. The feedback given highlights the importance of ongoing communications between students and the tutors who often need to act as mentors to retain student engagement. Full article